UnSpun 079 – Gavan Kearney: “Content Vs Context & Imitations Of Christ”

Live on Tuesdays at 5pm Pacific time - UnSpun #079:

Gavan Kearney returns.

In connection to the idea of context used to undermine content (see Martin Creed's light's going on and off) Gavan examines the anti-art ethos of early Modernism such as Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" (the urinal) and a book by the situationists Guy Debord & Asger Jorn published in 1957 called Memoires, which had a sand paper cover, the intention being that it would destroy all the other books on one's shelf - this anti- art is totalitarian, i that it allows no room for anything else.

Gavan also touches upon Western pop culture's fixation on manufactured youthful rebellion, drawing back to 1953's Marlon Brando film the Wild One & 1955's Blackboard Jungle (the latter effective teaching youngsters how to behave as "rebels").

Finally, Gavan discusses how this mythos is a latter day religion, complete with saints and martyrs and how the hippie look effectively drew upon millenia of Christian iconography.